THREATS AND RESPONSES: KOREAN PENINSULA

THREATS AND RESPONSES: KOREAN PENINSULA; North Korea Informs South Korea That It Doesn't Plan to Produce Nuclear Weapons

By HOWARD W. FRENCH

Published: January 23, 2003

SEOUL, South Korea, Jan. 22—
North Korea said today that it had no intention of producing nuclear weapons, making the pledge to South Korea in high-level talks here in which both sides appeared to be playing to different audiences.

The North Korean statement, which was heavily qualified, seemed intended to make the country's position sound more reasonable amid a festering nuclear proliferation crisis, and to appeal to an increasingly sympathetic South Korean audience.

''Although we have withdrawn from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, we have no intention of producing nuclear weapons at this stage,'' North Korea's chief delegate, Kim Ryong Song, said in a keynote speech at the first session of the cabinet-level talks in Seoul. ''The danger of a war that threatens peace on the Korean Peninsula is coming from the outside not from within.''

South Korea officials, meanwhile, pressed North Korea to return to the status quo of a month ago, before it heightened the crisis by expelling international monitors and removing the seals on containers that had housed nuclear fuel, which could be readily used in weapons production. ''We demanded that North Korea replace the seals at its nuclear reactor and reverse its withdrawal from the N.P.T. to regain the confidence of the international community,'' said Rhee Bong Jo, a spokesman for the South Korean delegation.

South Korea, whose incumbent president and president-elect are both ardent advocates of economic support and engagement with North Korea, is being watched closely by Washington, which seeks assurances that South Korea will work with the United States to develop a common strategy on the issue of nuclear proliferation by North Korea.

John R. Bolton, the under secretary of state for arms control and international security, met with South Korean officials today and reaffirmed Washington's intention to take the matter of North Korea's nuclear weapons capabilities before the United Nations Security Council as soon as possible. Mr. Bolton said a consensus had emerged in the region for that approach..

''We're prepared to talk directly with North Korea, but we'll not negotiate,'' Mr. Bolton said at a news conference in Seoul, after meeting South Korean officials with the Defense Ministry and Foreign Ministry.

''We will not talk to them in a way that rewards them for their behavior, and amounts to a submission to blackmail,'' he added.

In Washington, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said in an interview released today that the United States was studying proposals for renewing talks with North Korea, either bilaterally or in conjunction with other countries.

''It's a very delicate time now and a lot of what we're doing, we're doing it quietly and with some discretion,'' Mr. Powell said. ''But I think we made some progress.''

His cautious optimism was echoed by a senior Australian diplomat who visited North Korea last week. Australia is one of the few Western nations that has diplomatic relations with North Korea.

''Having been through the three days over there with them, we're mildly encouraged that there might be some prospect of dialogue,'' said the diplomat, Murray MacLean, the first assistant secretary for North Asian Affairs in Australia's Foreign Ministry, in an interview. ''But I would emphasize that achieving dialogue is going to be, in itself, quite a long, slow process, and the dialogue, when it gets going, will be as well.''

For weeks, North Korea has been signaling that it is unwilling to discuss the nuclear issue with anyone but the United States. Washington has insisted just as firmly that the problem is a matter for the international community, and not one that the Bush administration is willing to negotiate bilaterally.

The North Korean pledge here today to forgo nuclear weapons development for now appeared to be a reward to South Korea's leaders for their recent insistence in conversations with Washington on what they called the need for a peaceful, negotiated solution to the crisis. Substantively, North Korea conceded little today, but it might have improved its image with the South Korean public.

Relations between the United States and South Korea have grown increasingly strained in recent months, over political differences about how to deal with North Korea, and because of weeks of anti-American protests here, which coincided with a presidential campaign and the election in December of the liberal candidate, Roh Moo Hyun. Mr. Roh has demanded a leading role for South Korea in resolving the North Korean crisis.

North Korea would like to encourage as much distance as possible between Washington and Seoul, and it has lately stepped up its contacts with South Korea, after months of very little contact. The two Koreas are engaged in three separate rounds of talks this week. Red Cross talks at the Mount Kumgang resort in North Korea ended today with an agreement on a new round of family reunions. Negotiations on a stalled project to open cross-border railway and road links were scheduled to begin in North Korea later.

Throughout the crisis, North Korea has been playing on themes -- sometimes ham-handedly, sometimes more subtly -- that are meant to woo a South Korean public that seems increasingly nationalistic, and yearns for reunification and an end to the cold war in Korea.

''At this moment, all inter-Korean projects face grave obstacles posed by outside forces which do not like us to join our hands,'' Mr. Kim, North Korea's chief delegate, said today. ''The North and South should uphold the great cause of national independence and crush attempts by outside forces seeking to meddle in intranational affairs and forge ahead, without interruption, with all issues including economic projects which have been agreed upon by the two sides.''

Almost in direct reply, however, Mr. Rhee, the South Korean spokesman, told reporters, ''The South emphasized that overall inter-Korean relations would be unable to move ahead without the nuclear issue being resolved.''

North Korea can only have been encouraged by recent developments in South Korea, where Mr. Roh, the president-elect, has rejected the use of force in any dispute involving nuclear weapons in North Korea and of revising the five-decade-old alliance with the United States.

Mr. Roh's advisers have spoken in recent days about greatly increasing economic cooperation with North Korea, where the economy has nearly collapsed, and they have even hinted at seeking a reduction in the 37,000 American troops stationed in South Korea. Today, the newspaper Hankook Ilbo, citing documents it said it received from Mr. Roh's transition team, said Mr. Roh would ''invite North Korean leader Kim Jong Il for a second North-South summit meeting and seek ways to establish military confidence-building by scaling back military forces and examining each other's drills.''

Photo: Jeong Se Hyun, right, South Korea's chief delegate, and Kim Ryong Song, his North Korean counterpart, shared a toast yesterday during a break in the high-level talks between the two sides in Seoul, South Korea. (Pool photo by Choi Jae Ku)